Back when I was living at Christian & Tasha's, I came home one Sunday and asked Christian what he'd been up to with his Sunday.

As it turns out, Stevie & Christian had went across the bay, all the way to the end in Cox's Cove, before hiking over to the resettled community of Brakes Cove. I couldn't believe it. I told him that I hadn't been there and was shocked that they wouldn't let me know they were going.

Christian offered up, "ooooh. I'm soooo sorry we went the one place you haven't been in Newfoundland. Will you be okay?"

Clearly I needed to make it to Brakes Cove. This couldn't stand!

Brakes Cove has a litany of things working against it. First, it was one of those attractions that's so close that you tend to never get around to it. Second, it's conventionally reached by walking a beach at low tide, and whenever I checked, low tide was at some inconvenient time. Third, the means of getting down from Cox's Cove to the hiking beach was this rickety and sketchy staircase.

The above picture shows the replacement staircase, but the old one was so much worse as the ocean's ice and waves had broken out all of the bottom supports. Sizing it up, it looked like you'd be walking out into unsupported space before finally curving down to the beach.

Today Isy's friend was visiting and we'd also wrangled Shelloo into our plans, so gathering everyone meant we were a little late for low tide. Kingsley nobly disposed of walking down that sketchy staircase, and while the water seemed to be coming up, we were able to make it to Brakes Cove at the very least.

There's really not any true need to worry though, as you can walk over the hill to Cox's Cove on a disused path if you get marooned by the rising tide.

Brakes Cove was resettled in 1966 after the government decided that Cox's Cove would be the regional growth centre, as Cox's Cove was already connected to the provincial highway network. Another nearby community called Penguin Arm - located across Middle Arm from Cox's Cove - was also resettled to Cox's Cove at this time.

In Brakes Cove there were roughly 15 families who were given a small financial amount to abandon their homes and lands.

Amongst resettled communities in Newfoundland, the ones that aren't far from people are usually still home to seasonal cabins and fishing sheds. As Brakes Cove is very close and easily reached by the 650 people in Cox's Cove and the 19600 people in Corner Brook, our visit didn't really feel like visiting a ghost town.

Properties were fenced, cabins were well-maintained, grass was cut, and one property's Old Glory wasn't tattered in the slightest. There's even an AirBNB you can rent for $367/night.

(The 1945 census lists a Delaney with an over-simplified birth place of "United States" & now I'm left wondering if that's the American tie-in here.)

Cox's Cove is only 45 minutes from Corner Brook and today was so splendid that I was kicking myself for all of the years I'd put off this hike to Brakes Cove.

I kept trying to cherry-pick peak autumn leaf time or a gorgeous spring day where the tide went out right around sunset. Today I was ecstatic that I finally made the visit happen.

It's not really obvious when you're down in Brakes Cove, but I knew that there were old headstones up on the hill and in the trees to the west.

This is St. Theresa's Old Roman Catholic Cemetery, which the Newfoundland Grand Banks website - a great source of cemetery information in this province - only has five headstones displayed for its transcription. I think we may have sorted out and demarcated three or four.

The 1921 census lists 41 people in 8 households for Brakes Cove, while the 1945 census lists 65 people in 11 families/dwellings. This was enough for a Roman Catholic school, but the lack of a Newfoundland Encyclopedia entry leaves me wondering whether there was a separate church building, or if service was conducted in the school.

I'm only assuming there was a church here since the cemetery has the name "St. Theresa's" attached to it.

There's actually a New St. Theresa's Roman Catholic Cemetery as well, and it even has maintenance in terms of a fence, but I didn't know it existed as we stood in Brakes Cove.

Then again, I was cool with making sure we got a move on before the beach back to Cox's Cove disappeared.

In the end, the walk back only had one place where we had to pick our way over some rocks with water flowing between them.

I waited a long time to make it out to Brakes Cove and in the end it turned out to be an underrated gem amongst the hiking trails and sights of the Bay of Islands.

Heck, I'll probably be back one day to checkout that new cemetery, plus I'd love to see about walking and bushwhacking out to this cabin over on the next headland.